50 pages • 1-hour read
Lies and Weddings
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Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use and death.
Performative Wealth Versus Financial Stability
Almost all of the characters in the novel initially appear to be extremely wealthy, but although the Gresham family members live in an English manor house, are almost always impeccably dressed, attend elite schools, and mingle exclusively with those from a similarly elite class, Francis Gresham has repeatedly taken out loans to keep the estate afloat and finance his wife’s business interests, leaving the family in dire straits. As the narrative states, this life of excess has led to a situation in which, “behind all the magazine features and Instagram stories of the glamorous Greshams, luxuriating in couture at their swoon-worthy manor, glistening with golden tans aboard their antique black-sailed yacht, rose a gargantuan mountain of debt” (151). Ironically, the need to maintain the façade of wealth perpetuates the family’s cycle of debt because they are limited in their ability to change their lifestyle. The younger generation cannot even fathom what a more modest life would look like, and the family becomes more and more deeply mired in debt as they seek to uphold the illusion of limitless wealth.
Notably, the Gresham family is not the only wealthy family that projects the illusion of wealth while struggling with debt. After the marriage between Augusta and Max (who comes from an ancient family of German and Norwegian royalty), Francis is horrified to find out that Max’s family is also struggling financially. As Arabella will later lament, “they both married each other for their money, except there is no money left!” (638). The game of high-stakes illusions within the world of the ultra-wealthy is so complex that no one can tell who is actually financially solvent. Furthermore, the narrative suggests that social and financial positions can shift at any time. A prime example occurs when Eden abruptly becomes extremely rich after Rene Tan leaves her his entire fortune.
The idea that seemingly wealthy characters might turn out to be nearly bankrupt while those with modest incomes might suddenly become rich reveals how arbitrary and pointless the attachment to wealth really is. For characters like Arabella, the perceived status and social influence of great wealth is extremely important, but these assets can be snatched away at any moment. Other characters, such as Eden and Rufus, are mostly indifferent to how much money they have as long as they can live the life they want and remain true to their values. By showing that wealth can literally be an illusion, Kwan implies that finances do not count as one of life’s most important considerations.
The Challenges of Cross-Cultural Identity
The Gresham children are half-Chinese and half-English, whereas Eden is of Chinese descent on both her father and mother’s side. Nonetheless, she has lived in either the US or England for most of her life and therefore has strong ties to Western worldviews, and this complex cross-cultural background compels her to interfere in her children’s lives. According to the British system of primogeniture (in which the eldest son typically inherits a title and the entirety of an estate), Rufus should eventually step into Francis’s role as the Earl of Gresham. However, Rufus is more inspired by art and nature and longs for a life of greater freedom and less social constraint. As he eventually explains to his father, “Maybe it’s because I’m part Chinese or maybe it’s because I’ve spent so much time in Asia, but I feel so much more at home in Hawaii” (698). Thus, Rufus’s cross-cultural identity makes him crave a different vision than one his mother imagines for his future.
With these complicated family undercurrents, Rufus runs afoul of the rigid expectations that Arabella rationalizes as part of Chinese parenting. For example, Arabella makes comments such as “Chinese mothers show love through criticism” (749) and “I’m a Chinese mother, I can’t help it” (811) in order to defend the unfair demands that she places on Rufus and her other children. She also points out that because of his mixed heritage, Rufus has access to a type of privilege that she has not enjoyed. As she declares, “If you weren’t born the half-British Viscount St. Ives with that jawline of yours, you would understand my pain” (643). In this way, she ironically perpetuates the very race-based stereotypes and prejudices that she was forced to endure herself. The only difference is that her children can claim partial ownership of the more privileged class due to their half-European heritage. Thus, Arabella reveals her own resentment of her children even as she pushes them to conform to unbalanced social standards that implicitly paint her own Chinese heritage as less worthy of consideration.
Although he feels challenged by his mother’s system of values, Rufus has grown up with enough exposure to individualistic philosophies that he finds it completely unacceptable to marry someone solely to be of service to his family. He is left with some lingering doubts and regret as a function of his cross-cultural identity, but he ultimately feels secure in the choices he makes to buck his mother’s expectations. Because he wants Eden as his wife and the potential mother of his future children, Rufus arguably affirms his connection to the family-oriented philosophy of his Chinese heritage. However, he does not share his mother’s need to cultivate as much European heritage as possible for future generations. More importantly, he feels secure in his own identity, even if it does straddle two different cultural landscapes. Unlike Arabella, who fixates on conforming to social demands and proving her worth to others, Rufus has the freedom to be himself and find genuine love and happiness.
The Tension Between Parental Pressure and Filial Resistance
The novel explores a number of parent-child relationships and depicts many of them as being fraught with tension. In the lead-up to her wedding, Augusta struggles with resentment and anger at Arabella and refers to her mother as “a controlling bitch” (41). Rufus tries to feel sympathy for his mother’s motivations, but even he eventually tells her, “If you can’t find it in your heart to be happy for us and to love us for who we are right now, the next few decades are going to be bloody lonely for you” (753). Thus, although Arabella attempts to manipulate and control her children, they do not passively accept her behavior. Instead, they become more and more resistant to her efforts and soon openly defy her. For example, Beatrice marries Gopal and Rufus insists on pursuing his relationship with Eden. Likewise, Rufus experiences pressure from a pseudo-parental influence in the form of his aunt, Rosina. Rosina is very clear and frank in her perspective that Rufus is shirking his family responsibility by refusing to marry Martha, but Rufus does not seriously entertain this idea. Whether the family pressure comes from a parent or from someone in a pseudo-parental role, the younger characters in the novel consistently resist their parents’ overbearing attempts to control their future. These difficult dynamics only give rise to resistance and resentment, and as a whole, the novel offers a cautionary note about the risks involved when parents try to impose their values onto their children.
The breakdown of the relationship between Rene Tan and his son, Luis Felipe, offers the strongest—and arguably the most destructive—example of how children resist parental pressures. Rene has a stark vision of what he wants from his son and uses dubious tactics to shape Luis into the kind of man he envisions him to be. As a result of this intense pressure (and implicit rejection of who he truly is), Luis rebels and becomes so fixated on his own enjoyment that he abdicates all responsibility for his life and his future.
In this context, Luis’s struggles with substance abuse reflect the damaging effects of an absence of affection, and although his current troubles are of his own devising, he chafes under the dysfunctional family dynamics that have, at least in part, led him to this point. Even from beyond the grave, Rene tries to exert pressure on his son by attaching many conditions to Luis’s inheritance. While it is clear that Rene intends to withhold his vast fortune until Luis is mature enough to take responsibility for it, this final form of rejection and pressure immediately backfires, as Rene’s emotional resistance to his father’s will takes the form of dangerous substance abuse that results in a lethal overdose.
By contrast, Thomas Tong shows unwavering love and support to Eden while allowing her to make her own choices in life, and she ironically proves to be the least rebellious of the younger characters in the novel. She works in the same profession as her father and proudly lives according to the values he taught her. Although the narrative eventually reveals that Thomas is not Eden’s biological father, their close emotional bond provides the novel’s strongest example of a healthy parent-child relationship. Eden therefore serves as a foil to those like Augusta and Luis, whose parents attempt to control their children and only succeed in causing lasting tension and alienation.
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